THANK YOU, DAY!

A child expresses gratitude for the great outdoors.

This rhyming, poetic picture book gives readers a chance to join the narrator in showing joy and appreciation for nature’s gifts. From the grass to the flowers and birds, the child finds ways to be thankful for each element of the natural world: the sky holding sunlight, the beauty of buds, even the hardworking buzzing bees. There are poetic line breaks throughout the text and a purposeful use of punctuation, a lovely example of more complex writing for children. Dullaghan’s illustrations make use of a limited yet rich palette featuring blue and green with pops of yellow, burnt orange, and purple. The colors have the effect of drawing the reader’s eye to details such as the little orange cat and the stunning hues of the sunset. The child is drawn with paper-white skin and black braided hair. The endpapers resemble block printing, with a mustard-yellow background and a repeated pattern of images from the book in the negative space, leaving no page untouched. While children are often taught to show gratitude for people and things, this book provides space for reveling in the natural world and the bounty therein.

A lovely opportunity to stop and smell the roses—and say thank you.